Finding this year's surefire top 5 pick

Which draft slot is best?

In less than 24 hours, war rooms across the country will be jam packed with the anointed “greatest minds” in all of football, conglomerating to choose a player they think will alter the fortunes of their respective franchise.

More specifically, management in St. Louis, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Washington and Kansas City are in the prime slots to take a player that will rejuvenate such moribund enterprises as themselves.

Or are they?

By breaking down the top five picks from the past 10 drafts, not every top pick was created equally.

I’m on a mission to find out the perfect top five draft pick.

Every year, starting the day after the draft concludes, people begin looking for who will be next year’s Golden Boy franchise quarterback.

It’s quarterbacks that draw ESPN such high ratings to watch Chris Berman, Keyshawn Johnson and Mel Kiper, among others, talk about 40-yard dash times and “upside” for eight hours straight.

Some of those top-five quarterbacks include Joey Harrington, David Carr, Alex Smith and JaMarcus Russell.

Others include Philip Rivers, Eli Manning and Carson Palmer.

The reality of the matter is that 12 quarterbacks have been taken in the top five since 2000. Of those 12, seven have never made a pro bowl, and none have ever been named all-pro.

Only one has even played in a Super Bowl – Eli Manning, who won Super Bowl XLII with the Giants.

Most quarterbacks that get drafted highly typically sit on the bench at least half of their rookie season, if not the entire first year.

Coaches are scared to throw their $50 million investment into the fire too early and never see them blossom into stars. This thinking may not be all too far off.

Of the seven number one overall picks that were quarterbacks, only three have ever made a pro bowl, and just four are still starters in the league today.

The three that no longer start, all started games their rookie season. JaMarcus Russell, Alex Smith, and Michael Vick were forced to save their franchises in a hurry.

To be fair, Vick had quite a bit of early success, taking the Falcons to the playoffs twice before he turned into a jailbird.

Other teams may wish to take cornerstone tackle to protect a young quarterback.

All in all, it is a bit of a safer bet. Of the eight players taken in the top five since 2000, four have played in a Pro Bowl, and two have been named all-pro.

A couple picks have been home runs. Jake Long has made the Pro Bowl both years in the league, as has Joe Thomas in his three seasons. Chris Samuels made four Pro Bowls in his ten-year career.

The second overall pick in the draft is usually a good place to take non-skill players. In fact, no quarterback has gone number two since Donovan McNabb in 1999.

Only one player taken second overall has paid serious dividends, and that was Julius Peppers in 2002.

Other names under the “2^nd overall pick” category include Leonard Davis, Charles Rogers, Robert Gallery, and Reggie Bush (let’s face it- he had megastar written all over him, and it hasn’t happened).

If I had one piece of advice for general managers, it would be to stay the hell away from the fourth pick. That selection has produced zero all-pros, no rookie of the years, and only two pro bowl appearances since 2000.

The only good pick in that spot is Philip Rivers, who was traded from New York for Eli Manning on draft day.

Some (less than) notable names taken fourth include Peter Warrick, Justin Smith, Mike Williams, Dewayne Robertson and Cedric Benson.

Couple that trend with the fact that the traditionally pathetic drafters, the Washington Redskins, have that pick, and it could spell bad news for the nation’s capital.

The fifth pick has also been unforgiving, save for one future hall-of-famer.

LaDanian Tomlinson accounts for four of the six all-pro selections from fifth picks, and five of the nine all-pro selections.

Carnell Williams did earn Rookie of the Year honors with Tampa Bay in 2006.

Jamal Lewis also had a banner year when he topped the 2,000-yard mark in 2003.

Two of the highest-rated players in this year’s draft are defensive tackles. Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska and Oklahoma’s Gerald McCoy are expected to be both taken within the first four picks at worst.

Here are the names of the other three defensive tackles to go top-five in the last decade. Gerard Warren, Dewayne Robertson and Glenn Dorsey.

Dorsey is still young, but clearly using such a high pick on this position does not pay dividends.

Understandably, this draft class is relatively weak at the top, and there are not too many other options with the top picks other than Suh and McCoy, but this is a warning that neither may turn out as great as they were cracked up to be.

The money pick is lucky number three. Only three players have been taken third and not earned some sort of honors in their careers thus far.

Names in that group of third picks include Samuels, Andre Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald, Braylon Edwards, Vince Young, Joe Thomas and Matt Ryan.

Players picked first, second, fourth or fifth have accumulated 31 Pro Bowl appearances in their careers. The third pick has provided 17 appearances by itself in the past decade.

Though Johnson and Fitzgerald were both home runs at no. 3, taking wideouts this high is a risky business. The other receivers to go top five include Peter Warrick, Charles Rogers and Mike Williams among others.

Reflecting on all this list of 50 players, more than half of them struggled to live up to anywhere near expectations as pros.

The safest pick seems to be the third spot, and of all the positions traditionally selected early, offensive linemen have had the most success.

Using this logic, the best player to come out of this draft would be if the Buccaneers took Oklahoma State tackle Russell Okung with the third pick.

How likely is this? Not very, considering most everyone believes the Rams will take Sam Bradford, then the Lions will take Suh, leaving the Bucs to take McCoy.

However, a little look back at recent history could give the Bucs some greater insight on how to get a much greater return on a franchise-altering decision.

Why Lane Kiffin was USC's best choice

Lane Kiffin registered a perfect 10.0 on college football’s Richter scale Tuesday night when he accepted the head coaching job at USC.

The move comes less than two weeks after he completed his first season as the head coach at the University of Tennessee. During his only year in Knoxville, the Volunteers went 7-6, ending with a 37-14 loss to Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.

There are so many different ways to dissect and analyze this stunning news that it will be hard to cover it all in one fell swoop.

When the news first broke on Friday night that Pete Carroll had agreed in principle to leave USC for the Seattle Seahawks, my mind immediately jumped to Kiffin as the natural replacement. It made more sense than anyone else, I thought.

Just like Carroll, Kiffin is the cocky, smooth-talking bottle of energy and enthusiasm that is required to be the Trojans’ head coach. They both are dynamite recruiters (Kiffin served as recruiting coordinator under Carroll at USC), making signing five-star recruits seem easier than inviting freshman girls to a frat party.

Kffin’s first full-time assistant coaching job was the tight end coach under Carroll in 2001. For the first six years of his career, he learned the tricks of the trade in the midst of the longest-running dynasty the sport has seen in decades.

Coaching college football and coaching at USC are two entirely different animals. Nowhere else can players go and party with B-list celebrities on a weekly basis. There is not another school in the country where Snoop Dogg makes routine appearances on your practice field.

Kiffin learned how to coach at USC, not anywhere else. Even when he took the job at Tennessee last December, it was clear he was taking a Carrollesque approach to the job. It worked in the short term as the Vols’ landed a consensus top-five recruiting class two months after he was hired.

That approach injected vigor into a program that was quickly losing its luster. In hindsight, it is now easy to see that Kiffin clearly had his eye in other places. Of course he did. To say that Los Angeles and Knoxville have anything in common is like saying William Chung is this generation’s Elvis.

He knew what he was doing. While he may not have expected to be in Hollywood so quickly, Tennessee was not a long-term solution for Kiffin. He was lucky to even be offered the Volunteers job in the first place at age 33 and with only a 5-15 record with the Oakland Raiders to claim as head coaching experience. He didn’t pick Tennessee; instead it fell into his lap.

And for everyone who calls this move Bobby Petrino-esque, think a little deeper. Petrino was at a second or third-tier school (Louisville) when he entertained an offer by a first-tier school (Auburn), although he was much too underhanded during the process. He then took an NFL job in Atlanta, and quickly realized it was not the place for him, when he left in the wee hours of the night to head to back to the college game at Arkansas.

The Petrino Way is widely known as one that moves from job to job all too frequently, just looking for the next big splash rather than establishing a solid program. Like Petrino, Kiffin left the NFL with a sour taste in his mouth and found a prime job in the SEC.

Unlike Petrino, Kiffin just landed the job of a lifetime. In other words, do not expect Kiffin to find a job any better suited for him any time soon. He’s not a vagabond; he is simply a guy who ingeniously crafted a career path that put him on the fast track to his dream.

If Kiffin had taken an assistant job with an NFL team, or even a big-time FBS program, it’s extremely unlikely he would be on his way to LA Wednesday night. The 2009 season served as a yearlong interview for the controversial young coach.

It’s a funny thing about controversy and coach Kiffin. The pair is never too distant. After challenging Urban Meyer and Steve Spurrier on the recruiting trail in unprecedented and immoral fashion, several minor NCAA violations have been reported under Kiffin’s watch.

This leads to the biggest question surrounding this hire. Carroll left USC in a state of uncertainty and flux. Reggie Bush’s ongoing lawsuit is cause for concern for the Trojan program, which seems to be on the verge of NCAA sanctions. They are also in the midst of dealing with legal issues surrounding Joe McKnight, the running back whom last week declared for the NFL draft.

Reports say the McKnight situation won’t lead to any penalties from the NCAA, but the Bush issue could wreck the program for a significant amount of time. Postseason bans are possible while unlikely; the biggest hit will come in loss of scholarships.

Kiffin’s track record as a head coach clearly shows he is susceptible to run-ins with the NCAA. Looking back now, Bush was in fact recruited under Kiffin’s watch, and what’s to say he did not play a role in the cash benefit scandal involving the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner? At the very least, it’s not a stretch to assume he could have turned a blind eye to the situation.

Kiffin clearly values winning at all costs. He is willing to bend the rules enough to keep his team safe from punishment, while bringing in blue-chippers by the bushel.

It looks like he will be treading in deep water from the moment he sets foot in Heritage Hall on campus. The rumors are the seemingly inevitable sanctions could be laid down very soon, and it will be Kiffin’s mess to sort out.

If he is able to soldier through the era of probation, this will be a match made in Heaven.

He is assembling an all-star coaching staff already. He will bring his father Monte, one of the most innovative defensive minds in the history of the sport, to the staff from Tennessee. Also accompanying him from Knoxville will be Ed Orgeron, who coached the offensive line at USC in the early 2000s and is one of the most highly regarded recruiters in college football.

The biggest coup to Kiffin’s staff could be Norm Chow, also a one-time Trojans assistant. Kiffin actually replaced Chow as offensive coordinator in 2005 at USC when Chow left to take the same post with the Tennessee Titans. He is now back at cross-town rival UCLA, but ESPN’s Shelley Smith reports USC is working on a deal to bring him back to run the Trojans’ offense once again.

Chow has mentored some of the finest quarterbacks the college game has ever seen. He oversaw the Heisman-winning seasons from Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart at USC, as well as Ty Detmer at BYU. His reputation as the Yoda of college quarterbacks is infamous, and Kiffin is smart in bringing him back to Dagobah, and giving him Luke Sywalker, er…Matt Barkley as his first pupil.

Barkley was one of the most decorated prep quarterbacks since John Elway, and came to USC in 2009 with sky-high expectations. If he can be taken under Chow’s wing for the next two, maybe three years, there’s your 2012 or 2013 first overall draft pick.

Barkley is the epicenter of what can help Kiffin save USC. Assuming the Trojans evade any postseason ban, Barkley can help lead a reeling program back to the top of the Pac-10, salvaging the program’s reputation as one the best in the country. If he can win one Pac-10 championship before leaving for the NFL, it should be enough to let Kiffin do the rest of the work, as the sanctions would soon be lifted.

For reason to believe that the right coach can succeed soon after being taken off NCAA probation, go take a look at that shiny new crystal football in Tuscaloosa. Nick Saban inherited a program that had been riddled with trouble and had just been freed from the NCAA’s grasp.

In three seasons, Saban restored the Tide and all its glory with the school’s 13^th national championship. Saban was the right fit in Alabama (though he could probably win a load of games at Alabama-Birmingham), and Kiffin seems to fit the USC mold the same way.

Given the circumstances, USC made the best move they could in the long run. By hiring a Carroll disciple, one who clearly was willing to undergo intense criticism in order to take the job, the Trojans retain continuity to a program that really only knows a certain way of life.

Kiffin knows that way of life. It’s by rocking the world at any given time.